The Point of Anything
by SweetDeamon
Summary: The Marauders' NEWT examinations are just around the corner, and Remus has a question... MWPP. Dedicated to the wonderful reviewers of Fake. K for very minor swearing.


_Note: Dedicated to the lovely reviewers of Fake, because I would have abandoned it without you!_

_Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to J K Rowling and I am not making any profit from this piece of writing. _

**The Point of Anything**

It was six years, nine months, one week and three days after the question first occurred to him that Remus John Lupin finally threw down his Defense Against the Dark Arts textbook and asked the world at large:

"What's the point of anything?"

Opposite him, Remus' friend Sirius Black paused, spoonful of corn flakes midway to his mouth, and raised an eyebrow.

"Bit deep and meaningful for this time of the morning don't you think, Moony?" he said as their friend Peter Pettigrew reached past him to retrieve a jugful of orange juice.

"I've got one for you," James Potter offered from Remus' side, through a mouthful of boiled egg. "Why are we here?"

Sirius sucked in a deep exaggerated breath, tapping his fingers upon the table thoughtfully.

"That's a very good question, Prongs!" he told his friend in a mock-serious voice, causing Peter to snigger. "It's clearly going to be question number six on our Transfiguration exam..."

"It is a good question." Remus insisted, voice void of any form of humour whatsoever.

The other Marauders turned to stare at him.

"I mean...why am I even here? What's...what's the point of...this?" He gestured vaguely around him and his friends all looked around the Great Hall of Hogwarts School in an attempts to work on what in Merlin's name he was on about.

When Remus had first boarded the Hogwarts Express some years earlier, he had taken one good look at all the other excited first years and all the other equally cheery students and asked himself:

What's the point?

He wasn't like the other children, in fact if Dumbledore hadn't decided to be so kind he would not even have been on the train in the first place. How was he supposed to fit in? How was he supposed to keep up with his work when he was ill so often? What was the point of trying?

And then he had remembered what his mother had told him that morning, when she had stood him in the living room dressed in his immaculate new school uniform, beaming as she snapped photographs upon his father's big camera.

"Oh Remus!" she'd cried when his father had finally prized the camera from her hands, complaining that they were running late. "This is the proudest day of my whole life!" She'd rushed over to hug him, before her hands came to rest upon his shoulders and she looked down at him, expression suddenly firm. "Now you listen to me," she'd said as he'd stared back at her, nerves twisting his stomach into knots. "Don't you think anybody is any better than you, you hear me? You may be a little different, but that doesn't make them better than you! Okay?"

He'd given a small, rather terrified nod.

"Good! Now you go get on that train, Remus, and you make Professor Dumbledore glad that he let you go to school. Make Dad and I proud! You're a clever boy, you can do just as well as everybody else."

And that was the point, he'd told himself. The point was to have a normal childhood, to be as good as everybody else and to be proud of it, too.

By the end of his first evening in Hogwarts Castle, having been sorted into Gryffindor House along with Sirius, James and Peter who he had somehow found himself hitting it off with despite his nerves, Remus had decided that the point of all this was also to make some friends. Just to prove that he could. Just to prove that there were decent people in the world. People who liked him.

The point of studying hard to pass his OWLs had been to make sure he could stay on and study his favorite subjects at NEWT level, with his friends, two more years of normality. And so Remus had studied hard and passed them all. The next year he had selected the same subjects as his friends had, and the happiness had continued for just a little longer.

But what was the point of passing his NEWT exams? Pass or fail, he was out of school at the end of term and the past seven years would suddenly mean nothing. What did anybody care if he came top of the class? Nobody would give him a job in a million years, because as much as he could pretend here in the castle, there was no pretending out there in the real world.

It didn't matter whether or not he got an O in Defense Against the Dark Arts, or if he passed Transfiguration. It was all pointless, he was going to be thrown into the gutter and a sound knowledge of NEWT level Charms was not going to get him out of it.

For a werewolf, what was the point of anything?

"Moony," James said after a sizable pause. "I have absolutely no idea what you're on about, mate."

"Have you been at the butterbeer?" Sirius wanted to know, as Peter continued to stare.

"What's the point of me passing NEWT exams...or...or even coming to school in the first place?" Remus asked them, resting his elbows upon the book in front of him and burying his face in his hands.

As James and Sirius exchanged worried glances, Peter looked more bemused than ever.

"Well obviously you go to school to learn stuff, and you pass your exams so you can get a half decent job and..._oh_...."

"Shut up, Wormtail!" Both James and Sirius demanded, as Remus' shoulders slumped considerably.

"Well he has a point, don't you think?" Peter whispered, only for Sirius to elbow him painfully in the ribs.

"No he doesn't have a bloody point!" James insisted loudly, reaching to grab Remus by the shoulder and pull him up so that he reluctantly removed his face from the refuge of his arms. "There are plenty of reasons why you should be here to take your exams, Moony!"

"Like what?" came the disbelieving reply.

"Because somebody's got to be here to beat Prongs at Defense, otherwise I'm never going to hear the end of it!" Sirius told him, and Peter nodded his head vigorously.

"Not a chance!" James muttered, and Sirius said:

"See! He needs taking down a peg or two, Moony, and you're the one to do it!"

But Remus simply sighed and shook his head. His friends exchanged more worried glances and James resorted to patting him somewhat gingerly on the shoulder.

"C'mon Remus," he tried kindly. "Kick my arse in the Defense exams, you know you want to!"

"What's the point? I mean...so I come top of the class...so what?"

"So...so you know you've tried your best." James told him. "And as long as you try your best, you can carry on walking with your head held high."

"Prongs is right." Sirius agreed, as Peter once again nodded his head. "Study yourself stupid like you usually do, get decent marks in your NEWTs and give society the finger!"

"Exactly!" James enthused, leaping to his feet, causing Peter to jump. "Go out with a bang, mate! We're right behind you!"

Up at the teacher's table, Albus Dumbledore watched, a smile playing upon his lips as James Potter seized Remus Lupin by the arm and pulled him somewhat roughly to his feet. The dark haired boy proceeded to climb up onto the Gryffindor table, narrowly avoiding putting his foot in a bowl full of scrambled egg, before shouting to the hall at large:

"Do you hear that, everybody? Remus Lupin is going to kick my arse in our Defense Against the Dark Arts exam! Just you remember that!"

As both the students and teachers of Hogwarts simply stared rather bewildered at this declaration, James jumped back down from the table and reached for Remus' textbook. Opening it at a random page he thrust it into his friend's hands and demanded: "Get to it, Moony, the first exam's tomorrow morning!"

At last, Remus smiled.

Because the point was all he truly had was his pride and three good friends to be behind him.

Because the point was that would be all he would need.


End file.
